BIG BIG NEWS! And an invitation

On Saturday, September 21 the Synod Council of the North Carolina Synod voted to extend to me a call to Parkwood United Methodist Church and South Durham Connections. That is a very good thing – the thing I have been moving towards for awhile now.

I will be serving as a mission developer for South Durham Connections, working in particular with people who are not participating in traditional churches. My work will be anchored in the Parktown Food Hub. Parkwood UMC is the congregation that will be sponsoring me and in which the Parktown Food Hub is housed.

This is the vision that has been growing since I told Bishop Tim Smith on October 28, 2017 that I was going to be a mission developer. At that time he looked at me and asked “what kind of mission are you going to develop?” and I could not articulate an answer - it was a calling but I did not know how I would be answering it. I know now, though! Thanks be to God who has brought this thing to pass and patiently worked with everyone involved to bring us together into this opportunity to share Christ with a hurting world.

Now, two years later, I will be ordained in a service at 4:00 pm on October 27, 2019 - Reformation Sunday - at St. Paul’s Lutheran in Durham. St. Paul’s is my home congregation and there are many details that ordination at St. Paul’s will bring full circle.

You are all invited and I hope you can all attend. I love it that my first day as an ordained mission developer will be exactly two years after that conversation with Bishop Tim. God has left no detail untended. I am currently feeling all that love in a very particular and wonderful way.

Thank you all for your support and kindness, for the forms you filled out, the feedback you offered, the opportunities you provided, and the shoulders you shared so generously.

St. Paul’s address is 1200 West Cornwallis Road, at the corner of Pickett and Cornwallis Roads. There will be a reception after the service. All are welcome to attend. If you are a clergy member, please wear the vestments of your tradition. The color of the day is red, the color of the fire, hope, and power of the Holy Spirit.